Rival fans living harmoniously

<em>Posted by ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky</em> <p>The fan chat board hosted by the Tennessee Titans' web site disappeared not too long ago, prompting a few questions.</p> <p>I've emailed a few people who got in touch with the explanation that I got: the Titans recently flipped their web site over to an NFL platform, and while the league brings teams on board it is not supporting message boards yet. There could be a deal for all 32 clubs in the works.</p> <p>The team created an <a href="http://www.facebook.com/s.php?q=official+tennessee+titans&n=-1&k=400000000010&sf=r&init=q&sid=0#/pages/Nashville-TN/Official-Tennessee-Titans/56124123850?sid=0&ref=search" target="_blank">official Facebook page</a> to help offset the loss.</p> <p>I've also pointed some people to <a href="http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/mb/titanscentral" target="_blank">titanscentral.net</a>, a long-standing independent board fueled by what seems to me to be a good group of people, many of whom have helped me out in the past and several of whom keep me on my toes here at the AFC South Blog.</p> <p>But it turns out a board intended to replace the TOMB (Titans Official Message Board) has surfaced -- titanstailgate.com is working, but you need <a href="http://www.titanstailgate.com/forums/index.php" target="_blank">this link</a> to get there. It has no official affiliation with the team.</p> <p>The back story of how it came to be is an interesting one, according to Jesse in Nashville who emailed me:</p> <blockquote> <p>The benefactor ended up being the owner of <a href="http://www.texanstalk.com/" target="_blank">TexansTalk.com</a> who saw the plight of the TOMB and stepped up to help out some fellow AFC South fans. When surprised with the amount of money titans fans donated to the new message board, the Texans [board] owner wrote, <em>"First of all I want to thank everyone here for the donations. In case you haven't read between the lines this new board is being hosted on the TexansTalk.com server. I know many of you guys personally and I am happy to help you guys out (despite any ill feelings I may have for the team you root for)."</em></p> </blockquote> <p>Doesn't it make you all mushy inside?&nbsp;It's a Texans fan helping out the fans of the team that fled his city in 1997, creating the void his new team was created to fill.</p> <p>It's like when Dr. Peter Venkman said in Ghostbusters, "Dogs and cats, living together; mass hysteria."</p> <p>It turns out, the administrator of the new site, Yvette Thomas, had become friends over the years with Kevin Bilberry of TexansTalk.com.</p> <p>Said Thomas:</p> <blockquote> <p>"When I was informed the TOMB's demise was imminent, I called Kevin to ask about his overhead. I needed hard numbers to see what we were up against. When I told him our concept and our plans for content, he said his server should be big enough to handle our load. That was an offer I was stunned to receive. We promptly installed a donation app on the board with all funds going directly to him. We intend to always be good tenants and whatever we can do to offset his cost is fine by all of us."</p> </blockquote>

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